So far, most of the discussion of Paul Ryan, the presumptive Republican nominee for vice president, has focused on his budget proposals. But Mr. Ryan is a man of many ideas, which would ordinarily be a good thing. In his case, however, most of those ideas appear to come from works of fiction, specifically Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.”

For those who somehow missed it when growing up, “Atlas Shrugged” is a fantasy in which the world’s productive people — the “job creators,” if you like — withdraw their services from an ungrateful society. The novel’s centerpiece is a 64-page speech by John Galt, the angry elite’s ringleader; even Friedrich Hayek admitted that he never made it through that part. Yet the book is a perennial favorite among adolescent boys. Most boys eventually outgrow it. Some, however, remain devotees for life.

If Ryan wants to silence Krugman's attempts to attack him in this vein, he need merely point out that Atlas Shrugged is considerably more mature fiction than Foundation, the adolescent science fiction novel that Paul Krugman never outgrew.

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I wonder if anyone cares, since I'm willing to bet - even at this point - most people think Atlas Shrugged is a story about greek gods.

Also, I've seen Paul Ryan insist that he rejects Rand's philosophy, and is closer to Aquinas with some Distributivist leanings. In fact I was kind of hoping this election cycle would, miracle of miracles, result in Distributivism being brought up - only so I could see how liberals and conservatives and libertarians react to it. Probably universal condemnation, but it'd still be a reaction worth seeing.

Methinks that Ryan is being peddled as a more palatable Newt Gingrich. A "man of ideas" but not fat or adulterous (we presume). Obviously he's a fraud, but in a way, if his faux Atlas Shrugged fanboyism gets people thinking and seeing through the Matrix even a tiny amount, maybe it's not all bad. That being said, I would never vote for him or Romney.

Vox, did you get a load of Peter Schiff's recent interview where he told Gary Johnson that if his state were close, he'd go with Romney? Sadly, he buys into the "most importantest election evah" crap too. But it shows how pathetic Johnson is, because he could have easily retorted that argument if he chose. He literally ignored it.

I would imagine that producing tangible (as in it exists either in physical OR cyber-space) goods that consumers actually want and find useful is superior to passing around IOU's and paying off credit card A with credit card B.

OT: police state--Brandon Raub. I know some of the ilk have been following the case of Brandon Raub, the former Marine arrested last week (without charges) by a combination of the FBI, Secret Service, and local PD, then committed to a mental hospital for "evaluation." According to the SF Gate, he was just released when a judge reviewed his case. In pertinent part:

"Raub initially was taken the John Randolph Medical Center in Hopewell, where he was held over the weekend for a preliminary evaluation. After a hearing Monday, another judge ordered Raub detained for an additional month and transferred him to the Salem VA hospital.

Thursday's hearing was expected to be limited to Raub's objection to the transfer, so Whitehead said Sharrett's decision came as a surprise.

"The petition is so devoid of any factual allegations that it could not be reasonably expected to give rise to a case or controversy," the order says.

It's funny how people like Krugman are portraying Ryan as some sort of extremist. Paul Ryan is a big government republican in the bush mold.

Isn't it also interesting that the republican are attacking the democrats for cutting the growth of medicare? It just shows you that a certain segment of the population will never countenance any cuts to their programs. They vote in the greatest numbers and they'll viciously tear anyone to pieces who wants to cut spending. The only problem is that the bond market doesn't care.

@ Ben... absolutely right. A pair of moderate, big government Republicans that will do little to right things, and unless they roll back several years of Obama EPA rules (which start kicking in next year), they won't be able to keep the lights on by 2014.

WHile we are at it, Krugman is an idiot. I love were he closes the article claiming that if Ryna gets his way he will throw us into a great depression. The one we are already in --- and Krugman can't see.

I find it funny that all these liberals are trying to tie Paul Ryan in with the Objectivists crowds. He's nowhere close to such groups based on his own voting record alone.

In any case, the Objectivist movement has done more harm than good to our society. You have Alan Greenspan, who orchestrated the Housing and Internet Bubbles and you have Nathaniel Brandon who started and continues to maintain the self-esteem movement.

Objectivism was merely an atheist's attempt at defining morality without a higher power. It failed.

But if someone says "I think there were a few salient points in Atlas Shrugged," they're a nutcase extremist.

Such is the MSM grip on our society. As others have said, Ryan is a far, far cry from an objectivist or even more run-of-the-mill libertarian. We're more likely to see an intergalactic space war in the next 4 years than an Atlas Shrugged scenario led by the VP.

I, too, made it through Galt's 64 page speech. My eyes were glazed over the rest of the day and I needed several adult beverages to become somewhat mobile again. If they ever do the second of the Atlas movies it should be interesting to see how that's handled. I mean, Galt himself mentioned in the book the speech took 3 freaking hours!

I enjoyed Foundation. The idea of the Speakers controlling humanity through advance psycology soounds a lot like what the media and other things like print and some fiction do today.Not to mention government and falseflag operations, etc.

He purports to be financially responsible while proposing a budget that won't balance for 28 years. And he supported the raising of the debt ceiling. He's a complete fraud.

Well, there's what can be done and what cannot be done. He could propose the most wonderful budget in the world and also propose that Nancy Pelosi be sent to the salt mines in a real leopard skin cave-woman suit, but that doesn't mean it will happen.

No matter how awesome one is, Ron Paul for example, all the most awesome proposals in the world mean nothing if they cannot be passed, and the cesspool of DC is what it is. Stem the tide as well as you can, or make good proposals while the tide moves along unhindered?

No matter how awesome one is, Ron Paul for example, all the most awesome proposals in the world mean nothing if they cannot be passed, and the cesspool of DC is what it is. Stem the tide as well as you can, or make good proposals while the tide moves along unhindered?

He can't pass his worthless budget either. Why not show some balls instead. Hillary has more than the entire Republican party.

You might have a case if his budget had been enacted. But it hasn't. So you don't. The tide is unhindered in either case; best to stick to your principles... assuming you have any. Also, he had the power to stem the tide by refusing to raise the debt ceiling. He chose otherwise.

BTW, I note the irony in Neal Stephenson's latest interview: "You’re the ones who’ve been slacking off!" proclaims Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University (and one of the other speakers at Future Tense). He refers, of course, to SF writers. The scientists and engineers, he seems to be saying, are ready and looking for things to do. Time for the SF writers to start pulling their weight and supplying big visions that make sense.

Yup, you nailed it. There are few Republicans who have any credibility on financial/fiscal matters. Anyone who voted for a war, without paying for it, or a tax cut, without matching spending cuts, is guilty of financial mismanagement, right along with the liberals.

There is never going to consensus in this country on spending cuts until taxes are raised to cover the spending we want from the government. As long as the deficit continues the receiver class is going to be enabled by liberals without the sense to see the damage being done to the country.

For those who somehow missed it when growing up, “Atlas Shrugged” is a fantasy in which the world’s productive people — the “job creators,” if you like — withdraw their services from an ungrateful society.

Now don't get me wrong, I thought Atlas was pretty off-the-rails in places, but that is simply not the plot of the book. A bunch of industrialist types get systematically driven out of business by an incompetent and evil government, and Galt tells them "It's ok to quit, a quick collapse will be better anyway" and gives them a place to hide out. They don't quit out of peevishness, and the gratefulness of society or lack thereof doesn't enter it at all.

"I, too, made it through Galt's 64 page speech. My eyes were glazed over the rest of the day and I needed several adult beverages to become somewhat mobile again. If they ever do the second of the Atlas movies it should be interesting to see how that's handled. I mean, Galt himself mentioned in the book the speech took 3 freaking hours!"

Francisco's asinine ten minute speech about money being the root of all good was bad enough. I understand that they're actually including in in the second movie, which is supposed to be out Oct. 12.

"I enjoyed Foundation. The idea of the Speakers controlling humanity through advance psycology soounds a lot like what the media and other things like print and some fiction do today.Not to mention government and falseflag operations, etc."

Asimov pretty well ruined the whole thing for me when in the last novel we found out that the human race had been ruled behind the scenes for thousands of years by a malfunctioning robot.

In a completely unrelated track, I've been wondering how long it would take Dagny Taggart to give up on beta male John Galt in disgust and turn back to Hank or Francisco.

Also, he had the power to stem the tide by refusing to raise the debt ceiling. He chose otherwise.

I'm partially in agreement with this statement. On the other hand, like playing scrabble with friends on my iPhone, I might be able to play "zap" for a pretty good score this turn, but if I play "in" for a lame score but manage to set the next round up for a much better score, which should I do?

There is such a thing as strategy, and for one who is a Republican congressman, you probably want control of the senate and the White House in order to affect big changes. Obtaining this outcome outweighs putting a temporary cap on the budget, no?

Talk to me after the election and we'll see. Could be Romney/Ryan will be a disaster, more than likely so, but only time will tell.

Sorry, but train is headed for a cliff at 82 mph. Ryan wants to slow it down to 78 instead of 80. The problem is by the time the next round gets here after decelerating to 78, we will be going over the cliff already. Plus, no-one is actually going to slow it down during the current round, and we're over the cliff anyway, so yeah, he's either and ignorant incompetent believer in animal spirits and rainbow farting unicorns, or a fraudulent deceiver who knows better.

I know as much as I understand the math involved, and math is hard. And maybe animal spirits and rainbow colored money farting unicorns are real, and maybe aliens from Uranus will invade and save us, and maybe......... it's not as though I actually know.

I can't get past the utterly turgid prose and zero-dimensional characterization in Atlas Shrugged.

There's really no point to reading it unless you enjoy the polemics, because that's all there is. It's like a 1000 page Aesop fable.

I rather enjoy the Fountainhead more and I haven't read We The Living, but I think Anthem is actually a really good, since the polemics take a back seat to the plot and characters. It probably also helps that Anthem isn't crushingly long.

why should I read Ayn Rand when I can read John Crowley or Catherynne Valente?

You do it when you're in the mood for polemics and not plot, characters, or prose, of course.

Atlas Shrugged asks and attempts to answer some basic and interesting questions about the role of the prevalent philosophy in the life of a society and an individual. Like much of speculative fiction, it appeals to the intellect and the imagination rather than emotional sensibilities.

Well, there's what can be done and what cannot be done. He could propose the most wonderful budget in the world and also propose that Nancy Pelosi be sent to the salt mines in a real leopard skin cave-woman suit, but that doesn't mean it will happen.

Rule #1 of negotiation: Always start by asking more than you're willing to accept.

Rule #2 of negotiation: Never end by accepting less than you're willing to accept.

If a politician won't even follow these two simple rules, his constituents need to rethink their hiring practices.

I can't get past the utterly turgid prose and zero-dimensional characterization in Atlas Shrugged.

There's really no point to reading it unless you enjoy the polemics, because that's all there is. It's like a 1000 page Aesop fable.

I rather enjoy the Fountainhead more and I haven't read We The Living, but I think Anthem is actually a really good, since the polemics take a back seat to the plot and characters. It probably also helps that Anthem isn't crushingly long.

I have long thought that Atlas Shrugged could be turned into a great story in the hands of the right author. The broad strokes really are masterful. Even more so with The Fountainhead. Her main problem is that she conceives of people as complete static constants, who never undergo internal struggle and change. You can't tell a good story without that. Characters have to move from one state to another somehow. The only character who undergoes any change in Atlas Shrugged is Dagny, and even then it really isn't a change so much as a somewhat greater realization.

As a kid, I pretty much absorbed all the Ayn Rand one ever needs to know by listening to side one of "2112" by Rush. I'm pretty sure I didn't miss anything important, plus there are some tasty guitar licks, and the monologues fit inside of short rock songs, and they rhyme. Had a good giggle, and then moved on with my life.

"he need merely point out that Atlas Shrugged is considerably more mature fiction than Foundation"

This is a bit like pointing out that Ernie Bushmiller is a flatter cartoonist than Chester Gould, but that "Dick Tracy" is unintentionally funnier than "Nancy." Most of the time, anyway.

I sort of hold the view that a man like Ryan (or Krugman for that matter) who is past 40 and who has held positions of serious responsibility for some time now, ought not to be touting this or that thinker as being "influential" any more. A serious-minded man at that point in life should already have synthesized and digested all his past "influences", and should by now have formed a world-view that is his own, based on his own thinking and the circumstances which he sees in play before him, and which neither Ayn Rand nor St. Thomas Aquinas nor Mises nor L. Frank Baum could have anticipated.

"As long as the deficit continues the receiver class is going to be enabled by liberals without the sense to see the damage being done to the country."

Oh no, they're perfectly well aware of the damage being done to the country; it's just that, in their view, the correct people are being damaged.

Does anybody else besides me regret that Ayn Rand and Frank Lloyd Wright never had a love-child together?

It would have been the most arrogant, pompous, cape-wearing human being in history. Hell, the child probably would have been born with a cape already physically attached, and a full adult head of hair. The birth itself might have burned a hole clean into the center of the earth, causing history to end.

Her main problem is that she conceives of people as complete static constants, who never undergo internal struggle and change. You can't tell a good story without that.

Very true. Rand wrote that in her novels she was trying to portray man "as he ought to be" which resulted in idealized non-people. Heck, John Galt isn't even a character, he's a plot device.

The only character who undergoes any change in Atlas Shrugged is Dagny, and even then it really isn't a change so much as a somewhat greater realization.

Actually I think Hank Rearden is the character that changes the most throughout the novel. Cheryl also has something of a character arc, albeit a tragic one. I see Dagny, like Dominique Francon before her, as an author self-insert.

Joe McCarthy, Pat Buchanan, and Ron Paul were and are COMPLETELY right.

William Wallace lost his life for a bunch of apathetic passivists...much like the US constituency presently.

Any people that would...:elect the Clinton(s), Bush(es), and Obamas of the world,nominate the McCains and Rombamas of the world,tolerate the complete corrupt Hillarys and Pelosis of the world,accept abortion as law,look the other way at an disassociated "Supreme" Court,put up with being sexually assaulted at airports,passively pay taxes while reams of news sails through the blogosphere on how every one of the taxpayers are being financially raped by the entitled statists,continue to tolerate local, municipal, state, regional, and federal salaries, pensions, healthcare, and federal enploye contempt for US taxpayers,stand by and simply watch local law enforcement being paramilitaristically and financially "ratcheted up" with tax dollars,believe income tax, or ANY unapportioned tax, is legal and/or constitutional,accept domestic drones overhead,not even peruse, much less read, The Patriot Act, ObamaCare, NDAA, and scores of other legislation affecting birthright freedoms,allow H1-B, PERM, Affirmative Craption, and other lunacy "laws" to cost millions of Americans their STEM and other jobs,accept that 9/11 was about "war on terror",believe in an electoral college,believe in an "Supreme" Court,believe cops are there to "protect and serve",believe the US justice system including judges, lawyers, et. al. is fair, unbiased, and operates for the people,believe that Obama was US born, "legally" changed his name, and is not a treasonous traitor of The USA,accept a KKK Nazi entity such the likes of the IRS,blindly pay statists extortion "fear payments", otherwise known as taxes, to alleviate fear of reprisal, otherwise known as tyrannical oppression,believe ANY politician or bureaucrat has your best interests in mind,tolerate treatment by DMV, TSA, IRS, Wall Street, and all other forms of public/private corrupt ilk,allow filth like Family Guy, Britney Spears, HollyWood, and public education to corrupt our beautiful children,not ever read The Bible cover-to-cover even once during their lifetimes...

...aren't worth chopping the head off Big Brother for.

Famous quote:"Get your heads out of your asses, sheople.".--Saint Revolution

It is possible for individuals to modify their viewpoints. Romney and Ryan are examples of that. Romney may even have been a tad unwise in revealing his thoughts about the Fed. Few politicians, few talk show hosts, and few newspaper columnists so much as mention it.

Right now it is not possible for Obama to stray from his path toward national socialism because he has a mental disorder.